Just Say NO "W"

January 10, 2001

Despite his promise to be a "compassionate conservative," George W. Bush's Cabinet nominees are overwhelmingly radical right-wing ideologues.

Cabinet nominees John Ashcroft (for Attorney General) and Tommy Thompson (for Secretary of Health and Human Services) are proponents of some of the most regressive social policies on the ultraconservatives' agenda.

Ashcroft has urged a ban on some of the most effective forms of birth control as well as abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, or if a woman's health is at risk. Thompson is also staunchly anti-abortion rights. He signed an abortion procedures ban in Wisconsin like the one the U.S. Supreme Court found unconstitutionally deceptive and dangerous.

Both Ashcroft and Thompson advocate giving public funds, including monies for public education, to church-run programs, without adequate protection against proselytizing and discrimination.

As Wisconsin governor, Thompson engineered punitive welfare policies that hurt poor women and their families. Those policies were the foundation for the law passed by the Gingrich/Lott Congress.

Ashcroft used his position as attorney general of Missouri to try to deny NOW's constitutional right to call for a boycott of states which had not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment.

Bush seeks to install a Corporate Cabinet that is more concerned with big-business than the needs of ordinary people. Six of his thirteen pending Cabinet nominees come from oil and gas, drug, rail and defense companies, including a former CEO and a former VP from Lockheed Martin.

Join the National Organization for Women to Protest the Nominations of Ashcroft and Thompson!

Call your U.S. senator and urge her/him to vote "No" on Ashcroft and Thompson.
(Capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121 or visit www.senate.gov)

Write letters to the editor and call in to radio shows to help educate the public on Ashcroft's and Thompson's abysmal records on women's rights.

Call your local NOW chapter, get active in your community.

Join NOW . . . There's strength in numbers. We need you NOW more than ever!

For more information, call 202-628-8669, ext. 0, visit www.now.org, or email now@now.org